


Astro Boy

by RobinPlaysTrumpet15



Category: South Park
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Boyfriends, Cooking, Cute, Depression, Fluff, Fluffy Ending, M/M, Mental Health Issues, References to Depression, References to Drugs, References to anxiety, rated for language, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 05:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18025970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinPlaysTrumpet15/pseuds/RobinPlaysTrumpet15
Summary: It's a cute movie, and Craig has no problem watching it if he knows it will make Tweek feel better, if only for a little bit.





	Astro Boy

**Author's Note:**

> This is seriously just a vent fic because my depression took a nosedive after my two and a half hour fifteen minute nap. I watched Astro Boy and thus this fic was born. I hope you like it.

When Craig was a kid, he’d watched Astro Boy for the first time because he’d thought it would have something to do with space. He’d thought he’d see the main character flying through outer space and zooming around stars and planets.

It wasn’t that, but he liked it anyway. It was cute. And Tricia would watch it too, which meant their Mom really liked the movie since it got them both to sit down and shut up for 90 whole minutes.

And now, it was still cute. But mostly it was frustrating. Once upon a time, the thought of a place with no rules and no parents where you could play with chainsaws and eat pizza every night surrounded by other wild kids his age was like heaven. The best thing ever. Now, as an almost adult, it was impractical and dumb and dangerous and irritating. Especially since the one adult around was clearly an awful person who tried to ditch the kids he was responsible for at the first chance he got.

But Tweek liked the movie.

Sometimes, instead of his usual twitching and muttering and shirt pulling and shaking, Tweek would get really… down? Craig supposed that word worked. Tweek would start to get really subdued and floaty, sometimes completely out of the blue. His concentration would go straight out the window and he’d stare at things like he couldn’t make sense of them. He usually wasn’t very paranoid when he got like this, as if all the nervous energy had been sucked right out of him. Like he had no energy at all.

Like today.

It was Saturday and Craig’s parents were both out for the weekend. Tweek was spending the weekend with him because his own parents are away at a “seminar”, which really just meant a weekend of mandated meetings they had to attend in order to keep running their business and keep custody of their son. (Which was completely and totally their fault if you asked Craig. If they hadn’t been putting fucking drugs in their coffee and giving it to, not only their son but the entire town, they wouldn’t been in this mess.)

But it was the middle of the afternoon and Tweek had looked almost like if he’d kept his eyes open one more second, he’d collapse right there. Craig had made him lie down for a short cat nap. They set a timer for twenty minutes and Craig was supposed to get him up after that.

Except Craig had fallen asleep with him and then when the alarm went off, Tweek hadn’t woken up to it. He figured his boyfriend just really needed the sleep. (And honestly, he did. He still complained about the gnomes that stole his underpants and Korea trying to kill him, so his sleeping habits were a _little_ inconsistent.)

So Craig let him sleep. But that had been at about 3:45. Now it was just after six and Tweek had been adamant that he’d wanted to help cook dinner this evening.

“Craig!” Tricia complained from her spot on the couch. She was sprawled out on it, scrolling idly through whatever social media app she was currently infatuated with and hadn’t even bothered to look up at him.

“What?”

“Where’s Tweek? I haven’t seen him in hours. Did he leave?”

Craig rolled his eyes at her, despite how she wouldn’t see it. “You wouldn’t have seen him even if he was down here.”

She flipped him off, still staring at her phone screen.

He returned the gesture, continuing on with his explanation (that she totally didn’t deserve, by the way). “He’s upstairs asleep. I was about to go get him up so we can make dinner.”

That got her to look up. If Tricia liked anything in the real world, it was Tweek’s cooking. He was a better baker by far, but she loved when he made anything that she could swipe a bit of.

“Ooh! What are you making?” She hit the power button on her phone and let it fall to her chest and rest there.

Craig shrugged. “Might have a plan if Mom and Dad had actually gone grocery shopping last weekend like they said they were going to.” He strolled past the couch easily while his sister slumped further into the cushions and groaned.

“They’re the worst!”

He ignored her on his way up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom.

Tweek didn’t stir at the creak of the door, but he did jerk awake at Craig’s voice calling his name.

“What time is it?” he croaked. His voice was rough and raw and he clearly needed a drink of water.

“Six, dude,” Craig said, stopping at the bedside.

“W-What?!” Tweek flew upwards, sitting straight suddenly and looking around. Craig’s clock confirmed the time. “I said twenty minutes! Craig, you promised!”

Craig’s eyebrows furrowed. Tweek wasn’t stuttering. Was he that relaxed?

He shrugged. “I know, but you seemed like you needed the sleep, babe. Come help with dinner, alright?”

Tweek stared at him for a second before nodding belatedly. He shuffled under the blanket and pushed it aside, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress. Craig let him cling to his shirt on their way out of the room and down the stairs.

“Hi, Tweek,” Tricia commented with a brief glance away from her screen.

What a miracle.

Tweek didn’t respond.

They ended up pulling a “white queso” rice side from the pantry and some frozen ground beef. Craig was in charge of browning the beef while Tweek handled the microwaveable rice. (Tweek hated handling raw meat.) Once both were done, Tweek mixed in the rice into the beef’s pan and Craig cut up half a yellow bell pepper his mother hadn’t used for stir fry the other night. The fridge also yielded a still good bag of salad lettuce, sour cream, shredded cheese, and Taco Bell sauce packets.

Voila. Dinner.

Tricia had complained loudly that it had taken too long. Craig told her to shut up and fuck off. She didn’t seem to take it to heart, but she did so anyway, thanks to her phone.

When Craig turned his attention back to his boyfriend, Tweek was staring into the cupboard blankly. It was like he wasn’t seeing the dishes inside at all.

He’d been like that the whole time they were cooking. He was slow to action, seemed really spacey, he wasn’t concentrating on anything. Every moment he wasn’t checking on the rice, he either stared into thin air or read something idly on his phone.

Which was the moment it clicked in Craig’s head. It had happened again.

“Tweek,” he said quietly, gently pushing the blonde aside. Tweek looked at him for a second, his gaze falling away somewhere past Craig’s shoulder like he didn’t want to keeping seeing him. That happened. It was fine. Tweek didn’t like eye contact when he got like this.

Craig just let it go, pulling two bowls from the cabinet and shutting it again. He dished them both out a serving of the makeshift dinner they’d cooked, instructed casually for Tweek to grab a couple forks, and then led them back upstairs.

“Are you disappearing again?” his sister called after them.

Craig paused halfway up the stairs to shoot a cool, indifferent look at her.

“If you would disappear, I would be soooooo happy.” Then she flipped him off, he tried to do the same and failed, and continued to his bedroom.

Craig left Tweek and the bowls sitting on the bed, stepping away and exchanging his jeans for a pair of sweatpants. Tweek followed suit. They settled on the bed with their bowls in their laps while Craig scrolled through Hulu, looking for the one movie he knew Tweek might want to see right now.

He didn’t have to look long or hard. It popped up quickly, and he was able to cast it to the tv sitting across the room.

“What are we watching?” Tweek muttered, sticking his fork repeatedly into the cheesy rice dish and pushing the food around.

“You’ll see,” Craig offered in response.

Once finished with his phone, he settled comfortably into his pillows, Tweek curling into his side after a moment.

And hour and a half later of cutesy, heart-warming, vaguely irritating robotic dystopian/utopian future later, it was dark outside. Their food was long-finished and Tricia had come in twice to nag at them and say goodnight. Tweek sat up and stretched, crawling carefully over Craig’s legs to stand up. Wordlessly, he reached out and Craig handed him their bowls and the blonde’s water bottle.

Tweek disappeared downstairs for a few minutes, then returned, dishes put away and bottle freshly refilled.

“Feel better?” Craig asked.

Tweek looked at him and gave an almost smile, nodding a little bit with a small hum.

“Yeah. A bit.”

Astro Boy never failed to cheer Tweek up when he had an episode like this. Craig wasn’t sure if it was because he genuinely liked the movie or because of its message or perhaps that it was just a good, convenient distraction, but it seemed to work well. And it was one they could both watch time and again (within reason, of course) without it losing its charm. Craig was thankful it existed.

The Hulu timer ran out and the “next up” option started playing. A random episode of Steven Universe popped up. Craig didn’t pay it any attention.

“Good.”

He knew he wouldn’t get much more out of Tweek for the evening. Even after he started to feel better, episodes like this still let him quiet and withdrawn. But that was okay. It was progress. And Craig was still there for him should Tweek need to talk or scream or cry or punch something. They’d been in enough physical fights with each other by now. They knew how to pull their punches.

“Wanna watch something else?” Craig asked.

Tweek shrugged. He fell back onto the mattress with a relieved almost sigh, stretching again and snuggling back into Craig’s pillows.

“Too early to sleep…” he muttered almost to himself.

Craig agreed. It was only just before 8:30. Not nearly late enough to justify going to sleep. Tweek would be awake by two for sure.

“Well, since we’re watching kids’ movies…” Craig said, beginning his scrolling through Hulu again. “Let’s watch some more…”

They ended up binging a lot of Red Racer because that was all he could find that didn't make him want to jump out the window or gouge out his eyes. Tweek said it was fine.

They didn’t spend a whole lot of time watching the show anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Please let me know if you found any typos or grammar mistakes so I can fix them. I did actually cook that dinner and it was alright. 6/10 not mad at it, might make again on purpose. I've never written from Craig's perspective (or a character like Craig) before, so let me know how it went. Thanks!


End file.
